HYDERABAD: Actor Ravi Teja’s former driver and close associate Srinivas Rao’s questioning by Special Investigation Team officials concluded on Saturday. The tenth day of questioning, which completed in three hours, seemed to be a namesake exercise, coming a day after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s statement of not arresting anyone from the Telugu film industry in the drugs racket considering them as victims.
Srinivas Rao surprised everyone at the SIT by entering the Excise department building riding a bike. He is the first low-profile person to be grilled by the SIT in connection with the drugs racket.
Like the 11 film personalities, Rao is also facing allegations of taking drugs from peddlers to hand it over to actor Ravi Teja and others. The sleuths probing the case had found Rao’s number in the mobile phone of Calvin Mascarenhas, the alleged kingpin of the racket.
As soon as Rao left the office, the media point was also closed and the officials left the SIT office. The officials reportedly questioned Rao whether he has ever met Calvin and acted as a courier to handover drugs to Ravi Teja ever, said sources adding that his body fluids were also not collected by the officials.
Two more questioned
The SIT officials on Saturday questioned two more persons in connection with drug racket. “Rohith Agarwal and Danish Rajadhan of Hyderabad have been questioned along with Srinivas Rao in connection with the drug trafficking. No body has been arrested,” said officials.
Over 300 questioned so far in drug dragnet
To get to the root of the drugs and narcotics menace in Hyderabad, close to 300 people have been questioned by the Telangana Prohibition and Excise department officials so far. The strategy was to get hold of the users, get details on the peddlers. Officials from the department said that businessmen, students, employees were called and information was gathered from them.
The questioning session of drug users began even before Special Investigation Team started grilling the Tollywood celebrities. “Apart from the celebrities, notices were sent to others as well. Alongside Tollywood personalities, others were questioned too. Agenda was to get to source of narcotics menace,” sources in department said, adding that they did not not call people randomly but based on leads.
“Only after we got the leads that someone was a user, we called them for questioning. This is set to continue. Based on information from them many teams are searching for peddlers,” sources added. In fact, officials earlier said that details given by users have helped them catch some peddlers. Sleuths of the department got to know that darknet is the source of drugs for some people.
LB Nagar police takes 7-day custody of Nigerian gang
The LB Nagar police of Rachakonda commissionerate on Saturday took custody of the gang that was into drug trafficking and flesh trade in Hyderabad, for seven days till Aug 3.
The gang comprising Nigerian nationals and a woman from AP, who were into the illegal business, was arrested by the police on July 24. The accused Palaparthi Sangeetha (35), a call centre employee in Hyderabad and a native of AP, had fallen in love with a Nigerian national Ojukwa Cosmas and entered his gang which was into drug trafficking and flesh trade.
Police had seized 20 gm of cocaine, 12 gm of brown sugar, 39.8 gm of amphetamine tablets, 1.675 kg of ganja, along with three laptops, Rs 2.04 lakh cash, six passports, two motorcycles and nine mobiles, from the gang members.
Sangeetha played a major role in the illegal activities carried out by the gang comprising John Okorie, Okereke Cyril Anezi, Joan Paul Oneybuchi and Ogunka Henry Okechukwu.
“Sangeetha had opened bank accounts which were mostly used for money transfer during drug deals and she used to carry drugs with her to deliver to the customers. The gang was also into flesh trade. They used to drug people and encourage them to indulge into sexual activities with Nigerian women, who have come to the for education and employment purposes,” the police had earlier said.